HIS HISTORY ON THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCES. 119 



heirs of an anterior people, who understood Astronomy 

 perfectly. Those Chinese, those Hindoos, so renowned 

 for their learning, would thus have been mere deposi- 

 taries ; we should have to deprive them of the title of 

 inventors. Certain astronomical facts, found in the 

 annals of those southern nations, appear to have belonged 

 to a higher latitude. By these means we discover the 

 true site on the globe of the primitive people, proving 

 against the received opinion that learning came south- 

 ward from the north. 



Bailly also found that the ancient fables, considered 

 physically, appeared to belong to the northern regions of 

 the earth. 



In 1779, Bailly published a second collection, forming 

 a sequel to the former, and entitled Letters on the Atlantis 

 of Plato, and on the Ancient History of Asia. 



Voltaire died before these new letters could be com- 

 municated to him. Bailly did not think that this circum- 

 stance ought to make him change the form of the discus- 

 sion already employed in the former series ; it is still 

 Voltaire whom he addresses. 



The philosopher of Ferney thought it strange that 

 there should be no knowledge of this ancient people, 

 who, according to Bailly, had instructed the Indians. To 

 answer this difficulty, the celebrated astronomer under- 

 takes to prove that some nations have disappeared, with- 

 out their existence being known to us by any thing beyond 

 tradition. He cites five of these, and in the first rank 

 the Atlantidae. 



Aristotle said that he thought Atlantis was a fiction of 

 Plato's : " He who created it also destroyed it, like the 

 walls that Homer built on the shores of Troy, and then 

 made them disappear." Bailly does not join in this 



